Solo Leveling [Light Novel] Vol. 8

Finally finished this series at last, and it's leaving me with mixed feelings, though it does have a happy ending. And a big part of it is that this plot just isn't for me. The other part is that the writing is kind of shoddy.

The parts of the story that aren't for me: the mass amnesia and the "next generation" plotline. I personally view permanent amnesia as character death, so it's really difficult for me to see this as an improvement, even if, technically, most people are generally better off. It's worse when Ilhwan voluntarily has his memories erased to be a better father. I guess it helps it was his choice, but it's an uncomfortable one, all the same. Losing memory is a terrifying thought, even if some memories I can understand not show more wishing to have.

I pretty much never like next generation plots. I care about the cast of characters I've been through the story with, not a group of new people set to replace them, usually as the previous generation grows old and/or for some reason dies. Sooho and his small cast of new characters isn't that big of a deal in this volume, they're more important in Ragnarok (at least as far as I understand, since I have no plans to ever touch the sequel at this point), but I found the test Jinwoo puts him through silly when I first read it in the manhwa and I admittedly zoned out when reading it here. It's just dull. It doesn't help that rather than learn more about Cha Haein, again, we learn about a man. What's she doing as an adult? I assume track, but does she have any friends who aren't Jinwoo or the shadows? Does she have other thoughts about things that aren't track, Jinwoo, or Sooho? I can't even say I find Cha Haein to be an interesting character or want more story about her, particularly given the story spends more time making Go Gunhee and Woo Jinchul more interesting, but it just feels really silly, given we're meant to care about her relationship with Jinwoo. Why am I supposed to value the relationship when there is literally nothing there? It's just a void. And now here's Sooho, being almost equally boring yet still getting more development because he's a guy and Chugong can't really write women at all.

There's so much mess happening in this volume that it's almost painful to think back on it. Overall, a lot of the plots are just weird, though I hope Chugong found their bliss. The Antares dream was just weird, albeit a bit funny in the manhwa. The episode where Fang gets a new outfit felt really stupid, and is at least compelling in the manhwa because you've got Dubu's visuals. The characters don't really have personalities: they just really like Jinwoo, like Haein and Ilhwan and pretty much everyone else. And that's not entertaining as a narrative.

I can, on a logic level, understand why Jinchul is a cop. I find the idea that Jinwoo, someone who has never demonstrated all that great a skill at investigation (having cameras everywhere /= investigation, it just means you see a lot; data analysis is an important skill, too) or understanding people, would actually be good at being a "supercop", and I really question what the people he brings in for work did. Were they all murderers? There really aren't THAT many murderers out there. Is he just really great at collecting on parking tickets?

We're not going to touch on how Jinwoo just dismembers at least one criminal and the cops are like "eh" (but it's fine cause the guy broke into a house and beat two old people to death). On the one hand, realistic to how cops are, and normal for Jinwoo's character, considering how he treated the rapist after defeating Kang Taesik. On the other hand, deeply disturbing as a preview of what he's like as a cop. I don't know if this is meant as parody or what. Heroes becoming cops is a kind of disturbing result, and we went through this song and dance for another popular fantasy series already, and this is as silly then as it is now. Cops aren't the only option for solving people's problems, and it's just kind of unfortunate Chugong decided it was, at least for Jinchul and Jinwoo (e.g., Baek and Ilhwan are firefighters).

The other groanworthy change is having Go Gunhee - rather than dedicate himself to political reform for the marginalized like he did as an S-ranker - just become a rich dude who supports charities. There's no mention of how he pushed for political reform so rich men with money aren't necessary to make up for issues. He's just a nice rich guy now. It's so soulless and sad. We don't even know what the charities were for, which, given the rather terrible charities very rich men often support, is really nebulous. There's no mention of his wife or if they had kids or other family. He's literally just a rich guy who supported [insert whatever] charity and then dies because of an illness.

And then there's Jinah and Kyunghye. Ilhwan gets an aside, and even Haein gets a little bit of screentime. Jinah gets about a paragraph, and Kyunghye gets maybe a sentence or two. Kyunghye's life is her family. We have no idea if she had friends or dreams or anything, or if they had an extended family. We don't even really know what her life with Ilhwan was like other than they care about their children. Jinah generally follows the same path, going to medical school... other than becoming involved with Jinho, which seems more like a joke meant for shock value. I'm not averse to the relationship, but it seems kind of like a gotcha if you recall when Jinho was kicked out of his home in the original story timeline and Jinwoo refused to let him near Jinah for no reason. We don't know Jinah's thoughts on the matter. She's just vaguely existing somewhere in the background and then married and then pregnant. She's a woman, so her story does not matter beyond its involvement with the various men Chugong cares about. Same with Kyunghye.

Perhaps the one interesting Extra was the Igris story, which went into his POV a bit, particularly for his first battle with Jinwoo. Unfortunately we don't really learn much else about him - though we learn elsewhere he was human once, so it feels a bit meaningless, but it's fun to see his perspective of things, all the same. It's sad the rest of the volume didn't really live up to that. Everyone's a Jinwoo yes-man or doesn't matter.

It's not precisely a bad volume, and I imagine for a lot of people, this is a good ending. It's still boring, it's bland, the main romance is meaningless, and it's just kind of disappointing. I'm glad everyone gets a happy ending (relatively speaking), but I can't say I recommend it to anyone else, either. For better action-adventure regression stories, I'd recommend "Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint" and "My S-Class Hunters". Those are way better than this. But give the anime adaptation of this a shot, since it's pretty fun. show less

TBC